Re: Declaration design preference: type or name first

On Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:09:07 -0500, Logan Shaw
<lshaw-usenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>Richard Harter wrote:
>> On 1 Nov 2007 14:50:16 GMT, ram@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Stefan Ram)
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> cri@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Richard Harter) writes:
>>>> the code.  In natural languages a symbol (word) has the same
>>>> definition(s) everywhere.  This is one reason why natural
>>>  In English, the meaning of a name (like »James«) depends
>>>  on the context, too.
>>>
>>>  Even terms have different meanings, for example, an
>>>  »object« in Java (JLS3) is different from an »object«
>>>  in C++ (ISO/IEC 14882:2003(E)).
>>>
>>>  Many other words do not have any clear meaning at all,
>>>  but are still used widely.
>
>> Did you see the "(s)" after the word "definition"?  
>
>Sure.  If you want to stick the subset of natural language
>where people only use words as defined in the dictionary, that
>works.  But in the real world, people can and do give new
>definitions to words based on context.  This is in fact, how
>the definitions got into the dictionary in the first place:
>words are constantly being formed and being evolved and being
>given new meanings in certain contexts, and when the context
>becomes large and a few other things happen, it is sometimes
>accepted and canonized into the official dictionary or accepted
>and canonized into the popular (global) lexicon.
>
>For example, take the word "chip".  It was at first just a
>piece of something, like a wood chip.  Then someone invented
>potato chips and eventually the word "chip" became short for
>that.  Then integrated circuits and someone called them "chip"
>and that definition got adopted too.  You can bet that only
>a small number of people used "chip" to mean integrated circuit
>at first, and only in a certain context.  (Probably a cor****ate
>context; I don't know the exact history.)  During that time,
>"chip" meant "potato chip" or the original "chip" (as in wood
>chip) meaning outside that context, and it meant IC within that
>context.  Eventually, the IC meaning got accepted into the
>industry scope, and now it's in the formal dictionary scope
>as its own sense of the word "chip".
>
>In reality, natural language is a bit more complicated because
>there are overlapping contexts and pragmatic concerns are used
>to disambiguate things.  But the point is there are definitely
>local lexicons.  That's why we have the jargon file, after all.

Er, I think we all know all of that - it's all very true and not
much to the point.


Richard Harter, cri@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 http://www.varinoma.com
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die